vegan food in Austin TX

Taco Cleanse Day 11: What is a taco?

would you call this a taco?

Since I’ve been on the taco cleanse for 11 days now I’ve really given a lot of thought about what really is a taco. Since I happen to be vegan, of course I’ve been making and eating vegan tacos which btw is pretty easy to do here in Austin Texas. Recently, a blog that I love and respect implied that my tacos weren’t “real” because I am not eating pigs, chickens, cows, and other animals. While I certainly agree that vegan tacos aren’t culturally traditional, they do exist and are therefore real! I’m living proof of the reality of vegan tacos, I promise! I mean, are Taco Bell tacos culturally traditional? I know for some people, tradition is so important that they don’t want to see anything else and I can respect that. Sometimes I wish there was some respect in the other direction though. Maybe because of my life long love of Star Trek I am more of a future thinking kind of gal, but, it seems to me that the world changes all the time. Food preferences, especially, are constantly evolving. If they didn’t, Italians would have never embraced the tomato, a new world ingredient, and then where would we be as the human race? It’s hard to say really, except that we wouldn’t have marinara sauce and I would still firmly believe that vegan tacos are still tacos.

Where I’m having more trouble is with tacos that aren’t Mexican or Tex-Mex inspired. We, the taco scientists, decided as a group the most important aspect of the taco was the single fold around a filling. Years ago I ate my first Dutch Taco at the Flavor Spot in Portland, I didn’t think twice about a waffle enveloped around a sausage as being a taco, even if it wasn’t close to traditional. But, over the weekend, when I folded a pancake around sausage and called it a taco it definitely seemed like I was cheating on the cleanse. Falafel wraps have come up several times when discussing the taco cleanse with other vegans (the stereotype of herbivores eating tons of hummus is probably the most accurate of all the stereotypes). Even though it fits the parameter of the single fold, I don’t think it’s a taco, but then if you stick the same ingredients in a tortilla they kind of are! I mean, there are Korean tacos and Vietnamese tacos all over the place so why not a falafel taco? On the other hand, the tortilla isn’t entirely critical because low carb dieters and raw food enthusiasts use the lettuce leaf and call it a taco and who am I to judge them. So is a pita ok too? All I know for sure is that a burrito definitely isn’t a taco.

So, yeah, that’s what has been on my mind. Now you know more about what it’s like being a vegan on a taco cleanse. Please let me what you think below (although rude comments are always deleted). And yeah, if you are wondering, I’ve definitely been called out by the taco cleanse police.

Cows and pigs weren’t introduced to North America until the 1500s, which is after the taco was invented. The original taco contained small fish. This critic seems to think that it’s acceptable to have proteins other than fish in a “real” taco. Therefore, we have already moved on from tacos in their original form and it is perfectly acceptable to have vegan tacos.

Can’t we all just get along? One day (or one month) eating a taco is better than no days eating tacos. Amirite?

“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that single-folded flatbread; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the wrap involved in this case is not that.”
—Justice Potter Stewart

This post is hilarious. As I was writing my most recent blog post, my mind wondered whether or not grilled veggies + avocado + lime wrapped in a flour tortilla equals a taco…. or would that be more like a fajita? But don’t you make tacos with fajita ingredients!? Ha! …………

So, I’ve always had this niggling thought in the back of my head – a ton of “tacos” that I get in Austin are double-fold soft tortilla “tacos”. I get that it makes the filling stay put a bit better than a single-fold, but I’ve always thought that perhaps they were actually burritos. Well. In any case. I have some tortillas in the kitchen, as well as some tempeh and tomatoes – I’m going to go make a taco now!

I really intended to submit a thorough response to this post, but I keep thinking of your sausage-stuffed pancake taco drenched in maple syrup and I. just. can’t. Besides, Cassandra did it better than I ever could.